Nick Parks
Cmdr. Nick Parks, ret. | |
---|---|
Character Type | Secondary Character |
Biographical Information | |
Homeworld | Earth |
Born | September 2, 2348 |
Age | 41 |
Physical Description | |
Species | Human |
Gender | Male |
Family Information | |
Father | Adam Parks |
Mother | Ciarda Molloy Parks |
Sibling(s) | Theresa, Patrick |
Partner | Nope |
Child(ren) | Nope |
Political Information | |
Affiliation | Independent |
Rank | None |
Starfleet Status | Inactive (resigned 2386) |
Nick Parks was an officer of the Federation Starfleet and is also a systems specialist and a real space/subspace theorist. He pursued both posts up through the rank of commander within the Starfleet and then left when his research objectives and his Starfleet obligations no longer coincided. He worked as a civilian contractor for the Daystrom Institute before he resigned in early 2390 for unknown reasons. He is now working on Deep Space 10.
Biographic Information
- Full Name: Nicholas Noah Molloy Parks
- Species: Human
- Date of Birth: 2nd September, 2348
- Age: 41
- Place of Birth: Ireland, Earth
- Gender: Male
Appearance
- Height: 1.75m (5'9'')
- Weight: 86 kg (190 lbs).
- Hair Color: Gold
- Length of Hair: Short, with beard and mustache
- Eye Colour: Blue-hazel
- Skin Tone: Light
- Birthmarks, Scars: None
- Tattoos/Body Modifications: None
- Build: Solid, almost heavy
- Carriage: Dreamy
- Taste in Clothing: Comfortable, neutral colors
- Voice: Growing higher with age
- Handedness: Right
Family
- Spouse: None.
- Children: None.
- Parents
- Father: Adam, an attending, tenured surgeon at the Beaumont Hospital.
- Mother: Ciarda, a farmer of the old-fashioned variety.
- Siblings: Theresa (two years older), a horse breeder. Patrick (two years younger), a nurse.
Personal History
Nick was born in September of 2354, the second child of Ciarda and Adam Parks. Growing up, he showed an aptitude for a wide degree of subjects - maths, various sciences, language and literature, and several of the arts. As he aged, he grew more towards the sciences, and began to become very ambitious. He decided to join Starfleet, though he didn't know what he would pursue - science, what he both enjoyed and was good at, or a different field, which he assured himself he'd be good at, and would no doubt carry a higher chance of promotional possibilities. During his freshman year, he met Lily Ventu, also a freshman, though she was two years his senior. Unlike Nick, Lily knew exactly what she wanted out of Starfleet - she was on the counseling track - and he suspected that was what initially drew him to her. Before their first semester had ended, they had begun a romance that would last for many months to come. At the beginning of their junior years, Nick finally declares his degree plans - dual science and security/tactical - which, he was warned, was a very demanding track. Only a month or so into the semester, the Lily-Nick relationship has suffered accordingly, and they broke up inside of another month. The break-up leads to Lily's decision to take a leave of absence from the Academy. Nick does poorly for the remainder of that semester, and decides to retake many of his classes in the spring. When all is said and done, he ends up graduating in five years rather than four. Following his yearlong cruise, he graduated in 2377.
Professional History
Following his graduation, Ensign Parks was posted to Starbase 515 to assist in medical research. Though he was found by his superiors to be quite competent, he grew bored with the monotony of his purely science-related duties, and requested a transfer at the beginning of 2379. Nick was assigned to the Starship Bellerophon, an Intrepid-class vessel. There, he got his wish of completing tasks in both fields he had trained in: He helped design systems upgrades for Tactical Team Epsilon, and ran his own lab, specializing in the interaction between dark matter composition and subspace fields. Once again, he was found more than competent in his science work, but his tactical work, for which he hoped to be recognized for a promotion, was often overlooked. Frustrated, he put in for a transfer to a larger vessel. He was still granted a promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, based exclusively on his achievements in his science.
In 2381, Nick was assigned to the Akira-class Starship Thunderchild. Once there, he expressed his wish to serve exclusively in the security or tactical systems department. However, after a few months in tactical, rewiring torpedo launchers, he found himself desperately bored and requested a shift to security, where he rapidly lost interest in rotating phaser modulations. When he applied to either transfer or work concurrently with the science division, his request was denied as the Thunderchild's science department was already overstaffed. Reaching the end of his tether in regard to Starfleet, he requested a transfer to a ship that would allow him to work both with science and tactical in 2382. In the first days of 2383, his request wan honored and he was transferred to the Starship Constitution.
Nick was able to fulfill his goals on the Constitution, which lead to outstanding work in both departments, for which his was rewarded with a promotion to full lieutenant. For the first time, it looked as if Nick was doing all right - he seemed to finally be on the fast track, but then something happened that threw it all off balance. Expanding on his earlier subspace / dark matter research, Nick stumbled into the field of interdimensional fatigue. Not long into his research, he was able to contact a lost research vessel, the Kestrel, that had been dimensionally shifted and presumed destroyed. However, when his superiors reviewed his work, they were unable to duplicate his findings and restablish contact, and he was dismissed as fanciful. Incensed, Nick doubled his efforts, talking to the Kestrel crew, especially their CMO, Hayden Reynolds almost constantly while he was locked away in his lab, eschewing all 'real' friends. As of May 2384, he had made no progress in proving that Reynolds and the others existed, though he did continue to work tactical systems shifts very occasionally.
Nick was reunited with Lily in early 2384, and the reunion was enough to coax him out of his lab every so often. Following his part in the thwarting of the Angel One attempted takeover, Nick was promoted to lieutenant commander. And when Lily announced her transfer to the Triumphant as executive officer, she convinced Nick to come along as that ship's chief of systems operations. Without access to his lab, Nick couldn't help the Kestrel crew, but with his initial contact they were working on returning themselves to real space.
Following the decommissioning of the Triumphant, Nick was assigned to Deep Space 17 as a full-on science research officer. In the short time there, he made remarkable leaps forward in subspace warp bubble theory, and his work allowed him at last to free the Kestrel. This achievement not only shut up his former detractors, it also landed him prestigious awards and invitations to appointments, including the one that he finally accepted, as the head of the Subspace Theory Department aboard the prestigious Jupiter Station. In that capacity, Nick furthered his work and when he announced a new form of propulsion, the siphon drive, he was recognized with several more awards and a Starfleet promotion. However, in early 2386 when he submitted his research proposal for that year, it was flatly turned down by Starfleet - they wanted him to work within different research objectives and become more of a staff administrator - he'd been promoted upstairs. He tried twice more to submit proposals that both sides could find amicable, but always he was rejected. Finally, in March, he tendered his resignation, and was eagerly snapped up by the Daystrom Institute, where he worked for many years before resigning unexpectedly in 2390.